Returning Home

We woke up this morning to the ship's engines running but no movement. We are nearly at the port in Ushuaia.

Yesterday was a relaxing day on board, our final day. The seas were rougher than the first day going through the Drake Passage, but still nothing very difficult. It remained less rough than the South Georgia to Antarctica crossing. Even though we didn't get the "Drake Shake" we were not unhappy.

Around lunchtime, we sailed around the tip of Cape Horn. This is the southernmost point of Chile, and we were contacted by Chile and told we could not approach closer than 3 miles (which we knew, but I guess they wanted to make sure). There wasn't much wildlife, just a few birds flying around, but what was more fun was watching the waves coming up against the ship. At a couple of points, Greg went outside with the GoPro video recorder to record the movement of the ship against the waves. It kept us entertained for a couple of hours.

We've gone a total of 3,525 nautical miles of navigation on this journey – a long way!

Last night we did a group photo at 6pm, followed by a happy hour in the bar, and a very nice dinner – filet mignon, potatoes and tiramisu for dessert. Following dinner, we headed back to the bar / lecture room for the auction to raise money for the South Georgia Heritage Trust rat eradication program. Although we're not sure how much was raised, it was probably a couple thousand dollars, and one passenger offered up to $5,000 in matching funds. So we feel good about that. I bought a signed original heavy postcard of a bottlenose dolphin drawn by Kate Spencer, a naturalist on board. The auction was hilarious – it was supposedly run by Nick, a staff member from Tasmania who leads other Cheeseman's tours as well. But he's a terrible auctioneer, kept missing bids and lowering the auction amount. So a couple of passengers – Mandeep and Lisa particularly – stepped in to keep things moving.

Then we had the final photographic retrospective of our time in Antarctica. It is spectacularly gorgeous and it was a great reminder of where we've been and what we've seen. The final images were of the people on the trip, which was also a great way to end the evening.

We finally retired around midnight, having packed our bags in the afternoon and evening. As of this morning, we are heading home!